Rescue from the Rubble

Genelle Guzman-McMillian, an employee at the World Trade Centers on 9-11, remembers how she lay buried in the rubble for nearly 30 hours. She remembers the screams for help in the darkness. And she remembers the eventual silence.

Then, a miracle. Trapped in the rubble of concrete and steel, she remembered the teaching of her youth---that there is a God, that He loves you and He hears and answers prayer.

She extended her left hand upward into a sliver of open space in the rubble---and prayed. And prayed for God to rescue and save her.

Then someone grabbed her hand, called her by name and said, "My name is Paul, I've got you." She would be the last one saved from the rubble. The last survivor.

She shares the details of this miracle and the personal, spiritual transformation that has taken place in her life over the past 10 years in her book titled, "Angel In The Rubble: The Miraculous Rescue of 9-11's Last Survivor."

It's an inspiring story, appropriately told, one of many over this past weekend.

We must never forget what happened and who did it. We must, as Americans, remain vigilant.

Genelle's and other accounts have also given us a profound take away truth that also must be remembered.

It occurred to me that while each of us were forever impacted by the events of 9-11, most of us were not in New York City that September morning, yet there is a spiritual parallel story found in millions of people's lives today.

Wrong decisions, rebellion, abandonment of our Christian upbringing, broken relationships, immoral and deviant behavior and a myriad of personal failures finds many in the rubble of a broken, collapsed life. Sometimes driven by fear, or simply a lack of knowing the truth, we realize we have reached the end, and do not know where to turn.

The message? Reach up. Regardless of what you have done or believed in the past, God loves you and can perform a spiritual miracle in your life.

Paul, of the New Testament, had spent his life persecuting and killing Christians, believing it to be a mandate from God. But in a spiritual moment, his eyes were opened and his life transformed. There are millions of other similar testimonies.

We must remember 9-11. But perhaps there is an equally important message for us today, in the rubble, with little or no hope.

Reach up. God loves you. Regardless of your circumstances. He can and will rescue and restore you.

God bless you.

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